2 Killed, 1 Hurt In Blast At Home

Gas Line Suspected In Explosion

To those in one residential neighborhood in the west suburbs, it sounded like an airplane had crashed into just about everyone's back yard late Saturday night.

Even people 5 miles from the scene in unincorporated Downers Grove felt their houses shake and their windows rattle about 11:40 p.m.

What residents saw outside were the crumbled remains of a newly built house, with pieces thrown into surrounding houses and debris on fire and floating down through a snow-filled sky.

"Complete devastation" was how Darien-Woodridge Fire Protection District Chief Robert Tinucci described the scene. "It was very similar to a tornado. . . . That's what it looked like."

The explosion at 6127 Chase Ave. resulted in the deaths of a 57-year-old woman and a son who was visiting with his fiance for the holidays and to announce their recent engagement, authorities said.

A preliminary investigation has ruled out foul play or an explosive device and was leaning toward ignition of a fuel-air mixture such as natural gas as the cause, authorities said.

Kim Bowen, who worked for the construction company that built her new house, had moved in a few months earlier. Bowen moved from Wheaton, where a neighbor said that once her children had moved out, she had too much space in her former home.

Her son, Paul James Bowen, 33, lived in Charlotte, N.C., according to the DuPage County coroner's office.

Both were pronounced dead at the scene, and the preliminary cause of death for Kim Bowen was internal injuries, the coroner's office reported.

Molly Wong, 28, Paul Bowen's fiance and a resident of Lewisburg, W.Va., was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove. Her condition had been upgraded to serious from critical by Sunday afternoon, a hospital spokeswoman said.

The explosion and the resulting shock wave woke many residents.

"It was the loudest explosion I'd ever heard," said Scott Sahs, who lives three blocks away from Kim Bowen's house. "I was afraid to look outside and see a plane in my back yard."

Terry Ticknor, an off-duty firefighter with the Darien-Woodridge district, lives about half a block away from the home and was the first firefighter on the scene, Tinucci said. Ticknor ran from his house, saw Wong in the debris, and rescued her before other authorities arrived, Tinucci said.

Other people came to the house's location and then began evacuating the area, reportedly hearing the hiss of gas leaking from a connecting pipe and fearing another explosion. Authorities shut off gas and electricity in a four-block area as a precaution and restarted utilities about 10 hours later Sunday morning.

The blast leveled the house, leaving only the foundation and a pile of aluminum siding and wooden beams. Smoke came from the rubble immediately after the explosion, but authorities said only some small debris had ignited.

"It looked like snow, there was so much debris," said Ingrid Foster, a nearby resident.

Five neighboring houses were deemed unsafe by the Downers Grove Building Department because of the structural damage they suffered, and about 20 more sustained damage, Tinucci said.

The house to the immediate south had its north end caved in because of the explosion, and a wooden beam from Bowen's home was embedded almost at a right angle in its roof. Another had its fence partially knocked down and bore structural damage.

Many residents said they did not know Kim Bowen or her son very well since she had just moved into the newly built house over the summer.

In Wheaton, where Kim Bowen lived before moving to Downers Grove, a former next-door neighbor recalled her as a good friend and described her as "pretty happy. She was a happy-go-lucky person."

Kim Bowen worked for the Wheaton-based Symkal Associates home-building firm.

Authorities from several agencies, including the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, were investigating the cause of the explosion Sunday.

"Reviewing the scene, looking at the debris, it had the elements of a fuel-air explosion," ATF special agent Jerry Singer said. "One of the types is a natural-gas explosion."

Northern Illinois Gas Co., the Office of the State Fire Marshall Investigations, and Downers Grove's Building and Police Departments were also investigating the explosion.